eatery and good food go together just fine, yet chances are you’ll be ingesting a teaspoon of plastic every day. Microplastics, to be exact. Just to shake you up: that’s 5 grams per week (the equivalent of a credit card) and 260 grams per year. So you ingest that without knowing it. Enjoy your meal.
Leiden’s iGEM 2023 ‘Phase Out’ team is sounding the alarm; the world needs biodegradable plastic, and soon. Researchers at the University of Newcastle previously determined that you consume about 2,000 pieces of microplastics per week. That’s a conservative estimate, by the way; the actual number may be even higher. Microplastics, by the way, are found everywhere, even on the very bottom of the sea, according to the World Economic Forum.
Unaware of microplastics in food
The problem is that consumers are not aware of microplastics in food. For example, you don’t know in advance which foods contain the plastic particles. Even if you did know, the question is whether you would know which products to avoid, let alone avoid it at all. Tip of the hat: seafood contains relatively large amounts of microplastics.
In case you now have the idea of fanatically avoiding all foods that contain such plastic particles, stop dishing that out. In fact, water contains the largest amount of microplastics. Besides water, shellfish, beer and salt contain the most microplastics. The idea of the researchers is that the plastics present become more harmful the longer they are present in living organisms. There is no conclusive evidence for this (yet), but researchers are taking it into account.
While more research is needed to understand how microplastics affect health, it is important to use your common sense. In the spirit of “prevention is better than cure,” let’s list some simple facts and alternatives. If it doesn’t help, it doesn’t hurt.
Water
Water packaged in plastic bottles contains microplastics. Sounds as logical as it is. The WHO states for good reason that 90 percent of bottled water contains particles of plastic.The Conversation takes it a step further and states that a liter of water packaged in plastic bottles contains, on average, between two and 44 plastic particles.
The microplastics come from the packaging, meaning we expose ourselves to them every time we fill a bottle with water. So is ordinary tap water a safe alternative? Not really. Microplastics are also found in tap water. Orb Media examined a large number oftap water samples and found microplastics in 83 percent of them. The only good news is that tap water contains about 50 percent fewer particles compared to bottled water.
The alternative
Living without water is still not possible. So avoiding water is not an option. Fortunately, tap water in Europe contains a minimal amount of microplastics compared to America. So in that respect we are still reasonably safe here. Good advice is to replace your plastic bottle with an aluminum, refillable water bottle.
Seafood (and fish)
Although seafood is very tasty, it does contain particularly high levels of plastic particles. This conclusion is consistent with previous studies, in which shellfish were found to contain high concentrations of microplastics.
The alternative
Wild-caught salmon, mercury-free white fish, fresh calamari. Or even better: no fish at all, to keep the oceans somewhat alive. Moreover, fish also contains above-average levels of plastic, but much less than seafood.
Fruit and vegetables
Research, published in science journalScienceDirect, shows there is also a lot of microplastic in fruits and vegetables. Researchers previously knew that tiny particles about 50 nanometers in size could invade plant roots. But this study shows that particles about 40 times that size can also enter plants.
Alternative
There is no alternative to fruits and vegetables. Buy organic or biodynamic is the least you can do.
Beer
Unfortunately, the analysis by researchers at Newcastle University indicated it: beer contains microplastics in many cases. Since beer is made with water (one of the main “holders” of particles of plastic), this comes as no surprise.
The alternative
Wine.
Salt
As in beer, researchers also found traces of microplastics in salt, which is in fact as little surprise as the microplastics in beer. Studies have shown that 1 kilogram of sea salt can contain more than 600 plastic particles.
The alternative
Buy a high-quality brand of rock salt that was formed before the world was polluted, such as authentic Himalayan salt. (Most Himalayan salt you buy in the Netherlands, by the way, comes from somewhere else)